Upper Macungie Shooting

My column Saturday about a police coverup in Upper Macungie Township started out as another urban legend story.

An e-mail based on a Berks-Lehigh Regional Police Be On the Lookout alert was circulating around the Lehigh Valley, and a couple of readers sent it to me. It involved an Upper Macungie woman whom two men attempted to trap and shoot on her way home from the Trexlertown Wal-Mart one Sunday night in May, and it included harrowing details of her escape.

That story itself was astounding enough, but the police information was introduced by e-mailers who included a reference to a "gang initiation" and attributed it to Allentown's head of homicide. There's no such position, and alleged gang initiations are standard urban legend fare. What's more, so are attempted abductions of women at or near Wal-Mart.

So I was shocked when I called police and discovered they really were investigating such a report, and had decided not to let the public know because it might cause a panic. I thought this was a terrible decision, which is mostly what the column was about.

Some readers responded that I had been "punked" and that the police report almost certainly was false. In fact, they said, that may have been why they didn't publicize it.

My response is that police took it seriously enough to alert other departments about the car and the method of the attack, to provide the weekly Parkland Press with a set of tips about safety when you're shopping, and to let the victim know when they realized this e-mail was circulating and reassure her that her name hadn't been revealed.

But whether it turns out to be true or not -- and we may never know -- they have an obligation to let the public know when someone reports such a serious crime. This paternalistic concern about "panic" is ridiculous. People aren't going to start fleeing Upper Macungie or opening fire on one another. The only impact would be to make them more cautious, which is a good thing.

In response, someone left me a voice mail about other forms of gang initiations. He had gotten an e-mail warning that prospective gang members are initiated by shooting motorists who blink their lights at them. Was this one true, too?

It isn't. In fact, I think it's safe to assume that the vast majority of forwarded e-mails we receive, particularly involving alleged crimes, are a hoax. There aren't HIV-contaminated needles in coin returns. Criminals aren't trying to get shoppers to sniff perfume samples that really are ether. Gang members aren't hiding under your car to slash your ankles as you pump gas.

But once in awhile, you stumble across one that's true. That's what happened last week.

Current Comments

i live in the area of all this. let me say how dissapointed i was to hear about this long after it happened. i thought we could count on the police to help us. what a shame all of our tax dollars are being wasted on a police department that will not tell us the truth or protect us!!!!! what a shame and disgrace this is.